


Follow Me (Into the Unknown)

by EmeraldSage



Series: where I'm meant to be [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alfred/Happiness, American Revolution, Before the War fic, Gen, Historical References, Lot of introspection, Magic, Revolutionary War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25119589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldSage/pseuds/EmeraldSage
Summary: Alfred had never spent so much time away from his shores, and every day he lingered in Kirkland Manor was another day he had to fight the pull to journey home.  As the tension rose across the pond, and his people grew dissatisfied, he pushed back against both Arthur’s increasing control and the urge to reassert himself.Every day, he fought Arthur’s dismissive ignorance and his own treacherous heart.  Every day, he fought the pull that tugged at him across the sea, growing stronger and stronger as he himself did.  As he felt the urge that was him, not his people, demand the freedom he’d once known.Every day was a little harder, as he felt the struggle grow.  He wondered if Arthur knew that there was a growing part of him that wanted nothing more than to venture into the unknown?
Relationships: America & England (Hetalia)
Series: where I'm meant to be [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1816561
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	Follow Me (Into the Unknown)

**Author's Note:**

> _coughs_...I have no idea where this fic came from.

The whispers were calling him.

It wasn’t his people, not as Arthur had informed him that it was. He felt them separately; felt their needs and their pleas and the  _ drive  _ that was building within them as their dissatisfaction grew. His people were his because they lived on his land and loved him in the abstract way most people loved their home. He could influence them, and they could do the same, but it would take effort. Just as it took very little to separate them out from his own emotions; his own personhood.

They were separate from him, in a way these whispers weren’t.

These whispers...they  _ were  _ him. They were from the land that bore him up, the very soil, and water, and hearth that he’d been shaped from; the very air that gave him breath. The land that he grew from, that  _ was  _ him.

That  _ missed  _ him.

He missed it too.

They called so sweetly, and he could  _ see,  _ just beyond his grasp. Waves, pale ice and sky blended into the Atlantic’s palette as it crashed upon his Eastern shore. He could see the green - the  _ right  _ green - rise just beyond the shoreline as they wound around the coast. Cities sprung up, small towns and their dirt roads, farms sprinkled outside. Beyond the mountains, the tribes roamed, following the stars and old routes only they knew. He could feel them in the drumbeat of his heart and the pulse rush of blood as he pushed through the Mississippi across the tall long grass, past snow caps and looking out over another sea. The heady rush of heat from the desert warmed him down to his bones, as the crisp northern air took his breath away.

The siren song of his land, of his people, and it  _ called him.  _

And  _ oh,  _ how he  _ wanted _ -

“Alfred?” his uncle’s voice called, concerned, and he blinked. The world refocused around him - fractured and respun until he knew where he was even though he wished he didn’t. He turned his attention away from the window he’d been staring through - through to his father’s  _ not-right-green  _ garden, not the shores of a land that screamed for him - and back to Rhys. “Are you alright? I’ve called your name several times now.”

“My apologies Uncle Rhys,” he said, eyes flickering out over the gardens once more before he turned to fully face the Welshman, “I was a bit distracted.”

Hazel-green eyes studied him solemnly, consideringly. No doubt well aware of how often he’d been distracted these days, his head always turned west, gaze piercing past the garden and off into the unknown. Alfred knew his father had been ranting about it just last night, as he’d reorganized the guard patrol around the gardens.

But his Uncle Rhys was a private man, and extended the same courtesy to his nephew and the other colonies that grew up under his brother’s roof. Instead of expressing his concern, he only hummed, and turned back to the material splayed on the teaching desk in front of him. “Yes, I suppose so,” he said, “do try and focus though, Alfred.”

“Yes, Uncle Rhys,” he sighed, settling his elbow on the desk to allow his chin to rest in the cradle of his palm.

“Good,” his uncle proclaimed, “now, there will be a gala at the end of the month, and in the hopes of preventing another incident with the aperitif, we’ll go over the etiquette - ,” his uncle droned on. And knowing no excuses would be made for him at the upcoming gala, Alfred did his best - despite his loathing of the very event - to pay attention.

But even then, nothing could stop the way his eyes slid towards the window, as if following a siren call only he could hear, staring off into the unknown.

**.**

He felt the pull grow stronger the moment he stepped on the  _ not-right-green  _ grass in his father’s gardens. He hadn’t been allowed anywhere near them in the recent weeks, as he’d been drawn to them more and more. His father had even considered forcing him to move to another room, given that Alfred’s overlooked the garden’s massive sprawl. Alfred had laughed when the wind had brought him that particular whisper. It wasn’t the  _ garden  _ that called to Alfred, after all.

It was  _ home.  _

Even kept from the gardens as he was, his powers had grown, and grown, and were still growing. The green haven seemed to bloom even thicker and more lucious the longer Alfred remained, regardless of how he never stepped foot within it. Not even keeping him away from it stopped the evidence from showing in the brilliance of spring flowers in the dead of winter. He felt a wellspring of power hum just under his feet, brimming through every flowering tree, every leafy stalk, creeping ivy or thin blade of grass. The pull hummed in his mind, wrapping tight around his core and tugging playfully.

He kicked off his boots, peeling back the warm woolen socks, and rolling up the trailing hems of his day pants into cuffs around mid-calf. He felt the soft crunch of grass stirring underneath his foot, and his eyes slid shut as he felt a wave of relief go through him.

He twisted bare toes and dug them into the frost nipped ground, ignoring the cold for the  _ connection  _ that he’d missed so desperately. The little drips of power that nurtured his own finally connected to the larger whole.

And the siren call that was impossibly stronger.

It was wholly odd, he pondered, as he ventured further into the sprawl. The pull of  _ home  _ was coming from the gardens, and he wondered -

_ Where are you?  _

He walked faster, an odd sense of urgency creeping up on him, winding his way through the greenery. The forest rose up before him.

_ I can hear you,  _ he whispered in the safe confines of his mind, brushing a hand against the rough bark of an old oak tree and the call gentled, before it resumed louder. He paused, considering the forest looming ahead of him, and then said, quietly,  _ can you hear me?  _

The world  _ sang  _ and his breath hitched.

_ Are you out there?  _ He thought wondrously, staring at the canopy of green abundant around him,  _ are you waiting for me?  _ He slipped into the rich growth of the forest, mind racing as the siren call only grew louder. 

He wandered in a daze, heart pulled towards the familiar song while his feet were steady and sure. He avoided pointed rock clusters, itchy grass, any bumps or mounds or fairy rings like he’d known they were there. His feet knew where to go. Which, Alfred supposed, was one up his mind.

He blinked.  _ What was - there.  _

A shimmer of color, just barely out of view. He could only catch a glimpse of it. Perhaps if he got closer -

“Alfred!”

_ Father.  _

His head turned away.

The siren song cooed at him mournfully as he pulled away, likely on the verge of discovering what it was he was being towed towards. But he pushed it away as he turned his face towards the darkly imposing manor. There were too many consequences if he did otherwise.

_ What do I risk if I follow you?  _ He wondered as he made his way back. A heartbreaking thought, that was only made more devastating as he considered that the longer he waited, the less he hesitated. The more time he gave to his father, to allow the man to convince him he was doing the right thing for Alfred and his people, the less he believed it himself.

Arthur was waiting for him, face like a thundercloud, by the garden’s gate.

“Were you wandering about without shoes on?” his father demanded, disapproval lining his face. “In midwinter!”

“I didn’t want to get them muddy,” he responded, knowing his honest answer of  _ home feels stronger this way  _ would only provoke more scrutiny. “I left them by the bench.”

His father’s frown was still heavy, but the weighted disapproval lifted slightly, “Well,” he said, “you’ll wash off your feet before you come inside.”

“Yes, father.” The weight lifted.

“That’s a lad,” his father said warmly,  _ patronizingly,  _ as he rustled Alfred’s hair. “Now, be a dear, poppet, and get Mrs. Donnovan to bring the tea service once you’re done. I’d have Roger do it, only he has yet to find your special blend. Have them bring it to the day parlor.”

Alfred hesitated, a fraction too long, as he balked at the undisguised orders he’d been given; something inside him wrestling furiously against his decades of experience with his father’s temper. But then his father’s green eyes narrowed, showing a hint of the poisoned glow that signified the man’s brewing temper ready to catch, and said,  _ “Now,  _ Alfred.”

So he went. Wrestling with himself all the while.

And when the call came again, under his father’s too-watchful gaze, he dared not turn his head. But in his heart, the song grew louder.

**.**

The call roused him from his bed, jolting him awake startled and breathless as he pushed himself up, head twisting to face the window of his room, overlooking the gardens. Facing west.

_ Facing home.  _

A week before the gala, and it was louder than ever. It beckoned sweetly, pleading with him, and tugging at his heart. And as his father grew ever stricter, evermore possessive and controlling over the littlest things, he felt himself seek refuge in the sweet call that implored him.

_ Come home.  _

He choked on the longing, on the fierce, desperate desire to be home. Every day the longing grew, and every day the call strengthened.

Every day he was fighting back his very heart, and then left wondering - wounded and breathless -  _ why  _ he was fighting it; what was he fighting it for?

Not even thinking, he pulled himself out of bed. He laced up the boots sitting by the door, not even bothering to change out of his nightclothes - only grateful that he’d begun wearing pants rather than the usual nightgown - and pushed open the window. He almost flinched at the bitter cold that swept into his room, but he pushed it away, and pulled himself up to perch on the ledge.

And without hesitation, he jumped.

He hit the ink-washed grass beneath three stories down and pushed himself into a roll, letting the earth absorb his momentum beneath him, and slipped into the forest without further adieu.

His feet knew where to take him, twisting him around near-invisible trees and dancing fae; weaving him around the guards and dodging hanging traps Uncle Alistair left for game this deep in the forest. His steps were sure, and quick, and unfaltering.

And then he saw it. Even before he realized what it was, his breath hitched. And finally,  _ finally,  _ he came across the shimmering veil.

_ A portal.  _ His thoughts raced, simultaneously incredulous and filled with marvel, because this was  _ a portal. _ A portal to the outside world that had been denied to him as he was cloistered in the depths of the manor, his father growing increasingly desperate to keep Alfred hidden away from the restlessness growing across the sea.

Even though the restlessness, the dissatisfaction, the  _ drive  _ was already in his heart.

A thrill raced through his veins, spiking his adrenaline, and he  _ wondered -  _

_ No time like the present.  _

With Uncle Rhys’s scoldings whipping through his ears, he stepped through the portal. Magic danced, like spun rainbow shimmers, around the corner of eyes as the world around him fractured and respun itself into order. A rush of warmth enveloped him as everything slowed, even as his heart raced. And then he stepped onto grassy cobblestone streets instead of frost-nipped grass and wild weeds, and the hint of a sea breeze tweaked his nose.

A breath. And then another. And a shattered awe swirled together in his heart, as every ounce of fear vanished.

_ London. He was in London. He was near the docks in London.  _

Right in the middle of Arthur’s seat of power, with the man himself none the wiser.

The realization was heady, and his head spun as he walked.

Lamplighters and sailors alike glanced at him occasionally as he wandered down the docks, but dismissed him just as easily in the gloom. It was like he was a ghost, wandering aimlessly through his father’s heart, waiting to find purpose.

He studied the ships as he passed, the lingering impulse to jump up and stow away on a voyage to take him elsewhere.

And then he froze.

The Queen Anne’s Flag was waving proudly underneath the standard Union Jack, aglow under the moonlight. The men he was close enough to hear spoke in a familiar accented drawl.

“ - can’t be a layabout, you bloody cock robin, we’re settin’ sail at dawn.”

“Then watch whereabouts yer walkin’ ya bleeding gollumpus!”

“We already get in the goods from the moon rakers?”

“ - effin’ Rowe an’ ‘is poncey a-”

“C’mon lads, we’re off to New York come mornin’! Times a’ wastin’!”

His heart was racing as he lingered behind a crate, watching the sailors - heavyset and limber alike - moving crate after crate of goods into the ship. Smuggled goods as well, if the snatches of conversation he’d heard were accurate. And the ship was leaving for the colonies tomorrow morning at dawn.

_ This is my  _ **_chance._ **

But he had to talk to the captain first. He couldn’t stow away, not for the six weeks or more it would take to get back to his shores. He’d be noticed off the bat, and depending on who the captain was, he’d either be pressed into the crew or thrown overboard in the middle of the ocean. And even though he’d heard stories of his family making their way home from being “lost” at sea and drowning, he definitely didn’t want to find out how they’d done it through experience.

He’d wonder forever if he didn’t take this chance. He couldn’t risk it, even with all he stood to lose.

_ “Everyone you love is here within these walls,”  _ his father’s chiding voice echoed, bouncing about in his brain, and he considered how little the Empire truly knew about him. He thought of his elder sister with her smoky warmth and the brilliant colors she wore before Spain had come; of the eldest of his brothers with his soothing, rumbling voice and warm hugs, even when he was irate with Alfred. Of moss-eyed Tejas who was only a handful of decades older than him, whom he’d never quite met but knew in his heart.

Of Matthew, who was temporarily living in the halls of Kirkland Manor - the only concession Arthur had made to Alfred’s own family, and only because Matthew was  _ his  _ as well - who didn’t understand Alfred’s yearning for something more than what he had.

Yearning for something he’d lost the moment he’d taken Arthur’s hand, and learned that his love came with a  _ cost.  _

_ This is my  _ **_chance,_ ** the core of him cried out. It was a hand offered to Alfred while he was drowning under everything he was expected to be. An offer to take him  _ home.  _

And then, the sailors cleared the way. And he could see the man standing on the docks, talking quietly with the captain.

_ I know you,  _ he realized, and felt his heart  _ soar.  _

_ John Paul Jones. _

This...this would work. This would actually work.

He could go  _ home.  _

He straightened, plans whirling to life behind his eyes as he stepped out from behind the crate and towards the sympathetic Scottish defector who knew  _ exactly  _ who he was.  _ What  _ he was. He had work to do.

**.**

He stepped back through the portal, and felt it shimmer into nothingness behind him. But that was fine, he didn’t need the portal anymore. The portal had been the temptation; had been the final key in unlocking the drive that he’d pushed down. The last latch broken on the golden cage he’d watched Arthur build around him, and now he could push the bars out and watch them shatter.

He was going home.

He entered through the kitchens, sneaking into the pantry and liberating a small stash of dried fruits the cook liked to prep for the snacking colonies. He snatched a few dried rations, and a small loaf of bread that he knew would keep well on shipboard. With the price he was paying, and the captain’s sympathies, he knew he would eat well, but it was always worth preparing just in case.

He had no intention to survive up to two months on ship biscuit if there was any other option. He’d done that before.  _ Never again.  _

Rations wrapped in his arms, he snuck through the halls. The old stone walls whispered to him, warning him of the odd guard patrolling the corridors, or the young colony who couldn’t sleep and was heading to the kitchen for a midnight raid.

The corner of his lip curled up. Well, at least the food he’d taken wouldn’t be noticed quite yet.

The moment he made it to his room, however, the smile fell flat. He stood, for a long moment, just taking in his room. The soothing walls washed in gray by the moonlight, the familiar furniture he’d grown into over the last century and a half, the books sprawled across his writing desk, and the small personal effects scattered around. The cold wind from the open window was still tumbling through the room. He’d wondered idly, over the last few months, how he would feel if he ever forced himself to leave; how he’d mourn for this room, for this space and what it meant to him and to his father. How the moment he left, he would never return to this room as the same person. Either he’d return as a prisoner, on his father’s demand, or he’d return free and out of place. Or perhaps, he wouldn’t return at all. Perhaps his father would strip the room of everything that had made it  _ Alfred’s  _ in a fury of temper or some form of retribution. And he’d supposed, during those long, arduous weeks he’d pushed himself down, that he would grieve at the very thought.

But standing here, in this room, vibrating with energy and ready to finally seize his own agency...he didn’t regret a thing.

He would mourn later, maybe. Mourn what had become of his relationship with his father, with his family. But not now.

Because however long he’d agonized over a choice he thought had been taken from him didn’t matter anymore. He’d made a decision.

What came of it would come. He wouldn’t falter.

He dug through his closet and came up with the getaway pack he’d had prepared months ago, having realized long ago that it would eventually come down to this. He changed out of his bed clothes and into something shipworthy. He laced up his boots, tightened his belt, and felt the comfort of the loose poet shirt wrap embrace him. There was literally nothing like slipping into a favored pair of clothes. A knitted woolen pullover and a quilted jacket were quickly layered over it in deference to the season, mittens and scarf tucked away in a pocket, easily accessible. He did a final quick check of his belongings - and sneaking Hop into the pack as perhaps the only thing he would truly  _ mourn  _ if he’d let it get destroyed by Arthur’s temper had he left it behind - and then, he was almost ready to go.

_ One last thing,  _ he remembered, thinking of Jones’s caution of the captain’s easy susceptibility to the shine of a shilling. Knowing that passage to the colonies was often hideously expensive - to the tune of ten pounds last he’d heard, one reason Arthur was never worried about Alfred buying passage himself - he’d been surreptitiously liberating his father’s  _ distinguished  _ guests of their pocket change whenever the chance encounter allowed it. Arthur himself only allowed his colonies a certain amount of pocket money, knowing he could purchase anything they would desire, or use it as incentive for good behavior should he wish to.

But his father’s calculated frugality - in that area  _ only,  _ unfortunately, given the lavish quality of just about everything the man owned - aside, Alfred was  _ good  _ at looking innocent to those he didn’t know and he had very quick hands. He didn’t often use that particular gift, but the moment he’d realized Arthur had no plans of sending him home anytime soon, he’d set about opening another opportunity for himself.

He pulled down the small landscape painting he’d picked out as a child to set up in his room, and tugged out a loose brick behind the torn wallpaper. Smirking, he withdrew a hefty coin purse he’d nicked from Uncle Reilley decades ago, pulling out the sum Jones had told him of and some extra to sweeten the deal, and tucked the rest away in the depths of his pack. The sum he had to pay he rolled in a layer of cloth to ensure it wouldn’t clink, and tucked it a hidden pocket of his pack, right where it would rest against his back. Easily accessible, but not for the pickpockets that might linger.

And then, he realized, breathing out shakily, he was ready.

He slung his pack over his shoulder, tightening the fastenings of his coat, and stepped up to perch on the windowsill for the second time that night. He turned, taking in one last glance of his room as he stood, crouched, on the sill. Breathed in, eyes sliding shut, and then out again. He opened his eyes, turning.

And jumped.

He hit the ground and  _ ran.  _

The wind whispered to him of the guards with their routes, as the earth rumbled about the softest patches of grass and the quietest trees that would cloak his passage. Within one breath and the next, he’d cleared the patrol. The ivy rustled to him cheerfully, hidden in the dark shadow of the wall, and clung tightly to earthen stone walls that ringed the estate as he pulled himself up. Up, up and  _ over  _ the walls, and he pitched himself off the top in a breathless freefall before he hit the ground and rolled to a stop.

He froze, for one endless heartbeat, as he took in the sheer fact that he was  _ outside the walls.  _ That for all his father’s planning, all his patrols and all his wards, Alfred was still  _ here.  _ Alfred was on his way home.

Then the wind whistled in his ears and he felt a breathless smile lift his lips.

He ran.

He ran, with the wind at his back and the song in his heart calling him forwards. The earth pushed him forwards, rumbling softly about shortcuts and warning him of watchers. The land that wasn’t his - was his blood but not  _ him -  _ laughed and rumbled gleefully at his joy, murmuring fondly of a woman millennia gone with Uncle Alistair’s red hair and his father’s green eyes, who shared the earth with the grandson she’d never had the chance to meet, and pushed him onwards. Small tugs directed him to unbound horses or ponies that took him onwards and wandered away once they’d tired.

In the hours leading up to the break of dawn, he’d covered what would’ve taken him nearly the full day to travel, and as he arrived into the dimly lit city he felt nothing short of elated.

Jones only raised an eyebrow at his disheveled appearance, lip quirking in a half smile as he tugged him towards the captain. The captain looked curiously at him, and then quietly pleased when presented with the passage faire (plus extra), and welcomed him aboard with a nod. Jones, it seemed, would be introducing him to the crew, but - as Alfred had worked out earlier - this ship doubled as a smuggling ship, so no one would question the curious passenger who’d paid in full, yet preferred to take passage on a cargo ship rather than a passenger one.

Sailors were a curious lot, but they knew when to hold back their questions.

By the time the sky began to lighten from its ink dark night to a washed out grey heralding the dawn, the ship was packed, inspected, bribed, and loaded. The sails unfurled just as the first rays of gleaming light pierced the sky.

And as the call sounded once more, loud and desperate and pleading, he laughed. He laughed, winding an arm tight around one of the ropes holding the sails secure, and hopped up onto the rail over the open ocean, eyes facing the endless horizon as England fell away behind him.

_ Come home,  _ the whispers cried.

“I’m coming,” he laughed, delight racing through him as the wind whipped around him, whistling through the sails and carrying his words to the four corners of the globe.

_ I’m coming,  _ his heart sang, and the world was lit aglow as the sun crested the horizon in the sky behind them.

_ I’m coming home.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Historical References:  
> [American Colony Flags (and More)](http://www.loeser.us/flags/colonies.html)  
> [Smuggling & the American Revolution](https://blog.oieahc.wm.edu/smuggling-american-revolution-riverine-highway/)  
> [Slang w/ Letter "M"](https://www.geriwalton.com/slang-euphemisms-and-terms-letter-m/)  
> [38 Vulgar Slang Terms from Colonial Era](https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/18th-19th-century-vulgar-slang-terms/)  
> [John Paul Jones](https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/john-paul-jones)  
> [Prices & Wages through 1779](https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwages/1600-1779)  
> [Ship Biscuit](https://savoringthepast.net/2013/06/12/ships-biscuit-recipes/)


End file.
